Tag
by Vathara
Summary: Games over Edwards.


****

Tag

A/N: Airwolf belongs to Bellisario and Universal, Godzilla: The Series to Toho and Tristar. Airwolf is AU (moved ahead about twenty years). This story occurs sometime after "Breaking the Jesses" (Airwolf/G:tS), and mentions events of the G:tS "Monster Wars" episodes. "Angel" is what Edwards personnel call Airwolf.

~*~*~*~*~

__

13,000 feet. Mojave Desert. Near Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Lt. Commander Benton "Bent" Samuels, call sign "Pirate", glanced at the small screen connected to his laser indicator system; that bit of techno-annoyance that let pilots dogfight without actually letting loose with live rounds. Flexed his fingers on the F-15's stick. Took one more look around open sky. Blue. Bright. Suspicious as hell. "Valley?"

"Yeah?" Captain Eileen MacNair was a glint of white helmet in the sun, flying formation off his right wing. 

"We haven't got anything on radar."

"Yeah." 

"We don't see anything." 

"Yeah…."

"So how come I feel like I've got 'Kick me' painted on my six?" 

"Boo," said a laconic male voice, just as the screen bleeped _Blaster locked_.

__

Simulated blaster. Simulated, Pirate told himself, as his wingman broke right and he dove to break the lock. Fighter pilots did not scream. Even when they had no clue who the enemy was, or where, or what-

"Easy, Pirate." Not quite a laugh, as _blaster lock lost_ flashed onto the screen. "Might want to save that altitude." 

"Angel?" Valley's held audible astonishment; a breach of pilot calm-

But the black-and-white shape swooping out of the sun could have freaked out a Miramar instructor. 

Pirate shook his head, but the sleek vision remained. A darkness of glass and rotors, slipping into the airspace between him and Valley, casually blazing along just under Mach 1. 

__

Helicopters don't do _Mach 1_….

This one would. And more.

The black helmet in the right seat gave them a nod. "Take it your commander got our friend's message." 

"Yeah." Still a little breathless. _Get a grip_, Pirate told himself. _This is Angel._ The craft that had held his and Valley's wing in that whole mess over Edwards; the pilot that had saved more lives than he wanted to count. So what if they came by way of Langley. "You're going to play-" _alien fighter_, but they couldn't say that, "-Deniable aircraft?" He scanned the sky; no sign of other helicopters. "They came in packs." 

"We're all there is, Pirate." A woman's voice this time; sounded a little Texas, a little California. The copilot? Or more likely the engineer; only one helmet was visible in the front seats. "If your CO okays it." 

"He said you get one shot, then he'll think about it." Valley's tone held the same note of caution General Winchell's had, when their CO first laid open Langley's proposal to their fighter group. Granted, since the "deniable" mess almost a year back, every pilot wanted to know how to fight things that didn't fly like planes. But to let a "black" aircraft into military airspace, much less let her engage Air Force jets….

__

Then again, it's not like we've had much luck keeping her out, Pirate admitted. His radar screen _still_ didn't admit there was anything up here but him and Valley. "We're taking pictures." 

Now there was a laugh on the radio. "We've been seen before. Most people just don't believe what they see." 

__

Gee, I wonder why?

"So let's give him something to make up his mind." The dark visor blocked all sight of the man's face, but Pirate could hear his wry grin. "Give you five seconds' head start." 

~*~*~*~*~

Caitlin O'Shannessy tuned radar suppression from the engineer's seat, monitoring Airwolf's systems with the ease of long practice. Blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes. "Don't think they're taking us seriously, Hawke." 

"What a shame." Stringfellow Hawke watched the two jets swing east, obviously forming up to catch Airwolf between them. At least, obvious to anyone who'd outrun MiGs hot for blood. 

__

Naïve tactics, Airwolf observed; a whisper of fur and feathers in their minds, thrilling to even a mock fight. _Pincer avoidable with use of hover capabilities._

"Like a Hivemind ship would with anti-grav," Caitlin agreed. "They know you're not a helicopter, but they're acting like we're just another jet." 

"First mistake." Tan fingers curled around the collective. "Turbos!" 

Fire punched them through the sky.

~*~*~*~*~

Pirate jinked left, up, right, blocking out the annoying buzz that meant Angel was a hair from target lock. Valley matched him above, gradually narrowing the gap as their scopes began to lock on the ebony vixen-

Angel dropped from the sky, rotors whirling on in a blur of black and silver. 

__

Holy- 

And they were _past_ her, streaking away at just under the speed of sound, Angel so far out of their lock it wasn't funny. 

__

Multiple blaster lock, his console reported. _Both aircraft terminated_.

"I do _not_ believe that," Valley muttered. 

"Obviously." Not a hint of gloating in Angel's voice. Somehow, that made it worse. "You're it, people. Come get us." 

~*~*~*~*~

"Sure you want to make them mad?" Caitlin cast a glance toward the quiet man in the right seat as F-15s looped toward them. She'd learned to read String's silences; that twitch of gray shoulders would have been chuckling in most men. 

"Better us than the Hivemind. Besides…." He threw Airwolf into a mad plunge, howling toward the deck. 

"…They've got more to worry about than they think."

~*~*~*~*~

__

He's nuts!

Crazy or not, Pirate was hot on Angel's tail, moving into position for the kill. Five thousand feet. Angels four… three… 

__

He's got to pull up. And when Angel did, he'd be right in an Eagle target box. 

Angels two. One. Eight hundred feet and falling. 

Helicopters were made for low-level, sure, but they were past Mach 1.5! He _had_ to pull up-

Terrain avoidance radar blared, and Pirate pulled back, swearing. 

__

He's not pulling up!

Angel skimmed along the desert floor, barely fifty feet above the ground. _Still_ at Mach 1.5. And accelerating.

__

If he hits a dune, he's toast-

But Angel skittered through the air like a startled dragonfly, changing heading with split-second flicks of turbos. Dunes were in dead front of her - and weren't, as the dark craft somehow always moved aside in time. 

Jaw dropped, Pirate watched the mad dance. _So much for targeting_. 

~*~*~*~*~

Caitlin watched the pilot's helmet view on her monitor, heart racing as sand and stone slid past. A busy, singing hum filled the back of her mind as String and Airwolf flew as one, the AI executing maneuvers at a speed no human could match. She'd done this once or twice herself, but never past Mach….

__

An' I don't plan to start with two Eagles on my tail, Caitlin thought dryly. Tapping into the full flow of information available through Airwolf's link was wild. Fun, but wild. You could miss little things like-

Ah, right. Mountains.

~*~*~*~*~

"Look up!" Angel's engineer ordered.

Terrain avoidance sounded again, and Pirate realized just where they were. _CO's going to have our hides…._

No time to think; only a second to pull a hard right on the stick, veering off from the Tehachapi Mountains.

Angel vanished into rugged stone. 

~*~*~*~*~

"Hawke!" A fist was hammering the back of his seat. "Hawke, you listen to me an' come out of there." Fingers tapped over a console, rousing an electronic _bleep_ of protest. "Don't you give me that, Lady. You two scared the critters _enough_ for one day." 

String blinked, feeling Airwolf withdraw as turbos cut out. Rotors carried them through tight passes at the relatively sedate speed of 225 knots. "Cait. Are they…?" 

"Callin' you every dirty name in the book, an' a few they just made up," Caitlin reported, leaning back into her chair. "Ooh. I have got to write some of these down for Mom." 

String hid a smile. The ex-Highway Patrol pilot's mother probably would appreciate them, at that. "Home?" 

"Home."

~*~*~*~*~

"…And the unidentified aircraft never returned to visual range, sir," Lieutenant Commander Samuels finished, eyes firmly fixed on a point somewhere past General Winchell's shoulder. Still in his flight suit, the pilot had somehow found a spare minute with a wet comb, restoring short dark hair to a modicum of order before this quiet debriefing in the general's office. 

"At ease, Commander." _Before you strain something_, Winchell thought. Hands resting on the polished oak of his desk, the general let his gaze wander past to Captain MacNair, whose austere blond braid had more-or-less kept its tight weave. "Anything to add, Captain?" 

"Yes, sir." A short nod. "Respectfully, I would cheerfully maim to know how they got that kind of resolution on their terrain-following radar." 

"Uneven terrain, fifty feet above the deck, at over Mach 1.5," Winchell mused. "You don't think they were pushing it?"

Samuels blew out a quiet breath. "They seemed to know exactly what they were doing, sir." 

__

That's putting it mildly. MacNair and Samuels were good; they wouldn't have been nearly this embarrassed if they weren't. "An interesting experiment, Commander?" 

"You… could say that, sir." Samuels blinked, eyes glazed. Probably with the memory of mountains in his front view. 

"Interested in trying it again?" 

MacNair traded a glance with her wingman. "Sir?" she ventured. 

Winchell tapped the relevant printout on his desk. "According to this, if we ask, she'll show up again in a week." He gave them a shark's grin. "Which ought to give your group just enough time to figure out strategies to bring our Angel down to earth." 

Traded blinks. "Well, sir," Samuels started, "First I think we're going to need a lot more planes…." 


End file.
